3-D ANIMATION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS EFFECTS CALCULATIONS

A DEMONSTRATION WILL BE PERFORMED THAT WILL SHOW THE UTILITY OF REAL TIME ANIMATION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS EFFECTS DATA. DATA DEPICTING THE PROPAGATION OF AN AIRBLAST, GROUND SHOCK AND CRATER FORMATION WILL BE SIMULTANEOUSLY ANIMATED ON A 3-D GRAPHICS WORKSTATION. RECENT ADVANTAGES IN COMPUTING HAVE MADE IT POSSIBLE TO RENDER 3-D SHADED IMAGES OF POLYGON DATA AT INCREDIBLE SPEEDS. BY USING EXISTING SOFTWARE AND A CUSTOM SOFTWARE INTERFACE,IT WILL BE POSSIBLE TO DISPLAY THESE THREE DATA SETS AS SHADED SURFACES SIMULTANEOUSLY AND WATCH THEM EXPAND WITH TIME. VISUALIZATION WILL BE FURTHER ENHANCED BY INTERACTIVE MANIPULATION OF THE VIEWING ANGLE AND POSITION, AND ILLUMINATION OF THESE SURFACES. CLIPPING OF THE DATA SET WILL ALLOW OBSERVATION OF THE OF THE INTERNAL STRUCTURE OF THE EXPANDING BLAST FRONT. UTILIZING TRANSPARANCY FUNCTIONS APPLIED TO THE AIRBLAST WILL FURTHER ENHANCE VISUALIZATION OF THE CRATER FORMATION.